“Nevers”44 pages
- p. 43 …cavalry mounted on gas driven flying horses” never arrived to
“sweep the Germans from the sky…
- p. 46 …Mitchell never received an American air force commensurate with
the ambitious idens of air power which…
- p. 49 …This project, like so many others, had lagged, and the Air Service was
never equipped during…
- p. 50 …the Army or the Air Corps?” but never, “Are
you in the Army or the Corps…
- p. 55 …any Air Service officers, and I have never heard
anybody yet-any Air Service officer-against…
- p. 69 …But one axiom,
with its corollaries, never varied. T o him the airplane was first and…
- p. 75 …Powerful air attacks resolutely pressed home could never be
completely stopped, but their effects could best…
- p. 94 …rate for the time being, the decision never-
theless left an open question as to how…
- p. 121 …large-scale warfare; production of combat types never exceeded 300
aircraft a month. The pattern of…
- p. 122 …the German Air Force, the
Regia Aeronautica never exhibited sufficient power to be decisive in
the…
- p. 133 …Except for a few raids against French
factories, the force had never been employed in a…
- p. 140 …into
a complete war economy production was never equal to the demands
of our own forces…
- p. 150 …Long-term needs
of the Air Corps and the sudden availability of funds in quantities
never…
- p. 181 …Actually, the Air Staff had
never approved of the method followed in RAINBOW No. 5 . l…
- p. 217 …Members of the Hawaiian Air Force, who had never flown
heavy bombers, began to receive intensive…
- p. 219 …were not then satisfactory for permanent garrisons. Never-
theless, the commander of the Hawaiian Department, Lt…
- p. 227 …T h e planes never reached their destination. Other
bombardment units were being prepared for transfer…
- p. 241 …responsible officers, a few crucial points
have never been satisfactorily explained.
T h e general pattern…
- p. 277 …motors, sole-
noids, and gun mounts-were never found. After many hours of fruit-
less search…
- p. 288 …planners and
from which AAF Headquarters was never to deviate.
The translation of the accepted grand…
- p. 303 …the principal features of the plan
were never challenged, it was subsequently revised in a draft…
- p. 309 …W a r Plans Division was
never incorporated into GHQ and remained a potential rival to…
- p. 336 …the shooting and wrote that they were never
able to make out an airplane.g6It is…
- p. 412 …As it happened, the B-24's never
returned to India, but, instead, remained in the…
- p. 457 …Meanwhile the Edsall with the remaining
pilots had headed for Java, never to be heard from…
- p. 492 …Squadron was assigned, but which it would never reach, going from
Australia to Tongatabu; ( 3 ) Christmas…
- p. 500 …deck of a carrier presented a problem never
before challenged by Army planes. Hence an accelerated…
- p. 502 …the bows and wetting the flight deck. Never before had this been
accomplished, yet now it…
- p. 509 …Island, in the
Louisiade Archipelago.” They were never needed, for on 7-8 May
the two…
- p. 513 …exist, it was at a point which never reached the
aircrews, for on the operational level…
- p. 524 …handicaps under which
AAF planes had operated. Never were more than fourteen B- I 7’s…
- p. 527 …AAF planners clung firmly to their belief that
proper observance of economy of force would never…
- p. 531 …Crews which had
previously never loaded torpedoes now for the first time fitted these
weapons into…
- p. 544 …But the Japanese never at
any time based their bombers in appreciable numbers a t either…
- p. 548 …26's in torpedo-dropping, but they never would be put into
All told, the record…
- p. 556 …until it had been thoroughly trained and never to com-
mit it piecemeal. General Magruder had…
- p. 560 …pressed into service against the Germans," and never reached the
CBI." Colonel Haynes had reached India…
- p. 606 …reason that the Antilles Air Task Force
never evolved, as did I Bomber Command, into an…
- p. 614 …that reason deserving a high
priority, could never dispose of the U-boat menace but must…
- p. 635 …In Washington the Munitions Assign-
ments Board t had never considered this schedule as more than…
- p. 670 …they bombed from 39,200 feet, and never
below 30,000. By AAF standards they had…
- p. 672 …Goering had never put enough bombers over England,
nor had he concentrated his forces on the…
- p. 690 …of co-operation and combined action probably never
before equaled by the military forces of two…
- p. 729 …shoot at aerial targets, and several
had never operated a turret in the air. This deficiency…
T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
habit in respect to war had ever been first declare, then prepare. That
this policy had enjoyed the apparent sanction of success was not be-
cause of any virtue inherent in it. Actually our victories in foreign
wars owed much to three factors: the weakness of enemies like Mexico
and Spain; the involvement of enemies like England and Germany
with other European powers; and the geographical isolation of our
nation. In the period 1939-41these factors obtained, if at all, in a lesser
degree. Our potential enemies were strong, not weak; they were
girded for war materially and spiritually. The friendly powers upon
whom we might have depended for respite long shrank from war, and
when war came they crumbled one by one until only Britain stood,
and that precariously. And new techniques of war and new weapons-
particularly the long-range bomber and the carrier-borne plane-had
weakened the security once offered by our geographical situation.
Given these changed conditions and the revolutionary doctrines and
aggressive activities of the Axis powers, the United States could ill
afford its customary delay in preparing for war.
The national administration appreciated the new threat to our
security earlier than did most American citizens, but before Pearl
Harbor the public had, for the most part, come to recognize that
threat. This change in public opinion was in reality a psychological
preparation for war; it was brought about by the sheer logic of events
abroad and by the activities of private citizens, acting individually or
through organized groups, as well as by the educational efforts of the
national admini~tration.~Perhaps in the last analysis the psychological
preparation was the most important single factor in improving our
national defense, but this chapter is concerned only with more tangi-
ble measures inaugurated by the government.
When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, the United
States declared its n e ~ t r a l i t y . ~Its stated policy was to remain out of
the conflict if possible and a t the same time to keep the totalitarian
powers out of the Western Hemisphere. The latter objective de-
manded a further extension and an acceleration of previous programs
for strengthening American armed forces. It called also, because of
the threat of new weapons and modes of warfare, for the establish-
ment of new strategic bases. The declared policy was wholly con-
sonant with the Monroe Doctrine, and the measures taken to enforce
it were, for a while, consistent with our traditional ideas of defense.
But under the impact of repeated Axis successes in Europe, the
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